Arcs

Going geek here: Last night I caught my favorite show "Fringe" (time delayed from Thursday), and while it was a good typical Fringe show, I felt vaguely unsatisfied, just as I had the previous week. And the reason was the Arc.

Back in the olden days, weekly shows were somewhat self contained: Things that happened one week might echo later, and sometimes you'd get a big two-parter, but mostly, you could watch any episode in any order and be pretty ok. Think about old Star Trek - any episode wasn't particularly dependent on any other. If you had a long story you wanted to tell, you created a mini-series.

in the early 1990s, Babylon 5 had ambition: Not only was it going to be a weekly show, but it had a BIG story to tell, which the creator had plotted out over the course of 5 years. Things would happen, people would change, and information would be delivered that would help make sense of the larger story. It also helped that the creator actually WROTE most of the episodes, so the narrative was completely consistent.

After 2 middling years, Star Trek Deep Space 9 devoted a season to a larger narrative arc (the "Dominion" storyline). And I started to really LIKE the idea of a show that is both a weekly story, and a BIGGER story. Of course, heavily Arc'ed shows are relatively viewer hostile - if you can't enjoy a standalone show, you'll never be comfortable as a late joiner to the story. Look to LOST for the ultimate Arc show - I'm pretty sure that if you aren't fully up on the plot, a show would have zero relevance.

So a show like Fringe is in a tricky situation: It's popular, but not SUPER popular. They have a really compelling "Big Story" Arc, but don't want to alienate a growing audience. The way around this is "arc lite" which is a 50/50 mix of shows that stand alone, and shows that contribute to the Arc. People learn and change, but you are never asking people to review their notes to recall what happened before.

The X-Files started this direction, creating the larger Arc of the Aliens, but committed the unforgivable sin of not adhering to the Arc rules with any consistency: Scully would see something one week in an "arc" episode, and then the next week would be the same old skeptic who acts as if she'd never seen anything odd in her life. By the time you got to the movies, you realized that the creators/writers weren't actually working from an actual Arc - they were making up cool stuff in their world, and then trying to wrap an arc AROUND it, which made no sense.

Heroes, on the other hand, had a great Arc season 1, then lame Arcs for seasons 2,3 and 4... and not only that, they were 100% arc, with no standalone option: But the amount of plot they embedded in the arc was probably enough for a full season "background arc" (where you alternate standalone and arc shows), but not enough plot to sustain a 100% arc show, so it felt STRETCHED. Plot points were telegraphed literally 3 shows in advance. Someone could probably edit a full season of Heroes into a 6 episode miniseries that felt tight and strong. But 24 episodes... it's padding. And not good padding.

Dollhouse is a true gem of a show, which started as a show-of-the-week series, and started getting Arc-y in the second half of the first season, culminating in some really amazing shows.... They were believed to be canceled, and somehow got a second season, which they started with standalone shows again - perhaps wanting to remain accessible to those outside of the arc... but it got them canceled, though with a 7 show "permission slip" to wrap it all up. And so for the past 2 months I have been deliriously enjoying Dollhouse's conclusion with 7 pure arc shows that cater directly to the story with very little standalone.

Back in September, when Dollhouse was only slightly arc-y, and so was Fringe, I was loving both shows. But today, with Dollhouse being in full Arc, the fact that Fringe returned from Xmas hiatus with not one, not two, but THREE non-arc shows (each of which offered but one SENTENCE of reference to the larger arc), I just feel disappointed.

I'm sure that next week, things will be back on track, since they only have 8 more episodes in the season, and some major plot arc to move forward... Plus Dollhouse will be dead and buried, so I'll have to love it. I've got nothing else left!

In conclusion, my name is Jim and I'm a geek.